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Every year this time, the mind turns to Jane Pitfield, the former city councillor and failed mayoral candidate defeated by David Miller. Pitfield was city hall’s self-appointed surplus watchdog during the Mel Lastman years. Hers was a futile job pursued with passion, to little effect.

Pitfield argued the annual surplus should be as small as possible — much smaller than Toronto manages each year. To generate a large surplus is an indictment of the government, she said. It means city hall was taxing its citizens too much, taking much more money than it needed to run the services.

In essence, why raise transit fares to gain $50 million in revenues, only to end up with an extra $200 million in revenues at year-end?

Pitfield’s arguments gained little traction because a surplus is a good problem to have — certainly much better than the deficits wracked up by border cities like Buffalo and Detroit.

Toronto, whether under Lastman or Miller or Rob Ford or the next mayor, is sure to generate a budget surplus each year on its $9-billion budget, the largest of any city in Canada and bigger than some provinces. Here’s why:

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For one, budgeting is an inexact science; you can’t match exactly revenues to expenses. Secondly, the city cannot, by law, run a deficit, so it must budget for a surplus. And, finally, the annual surplus announcement is frequently appropriated and spun into the political propaganda of the day.

So, when current budget chief Frank Di Giorgio predicted in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday that Mayor Ford will claim the 2012 surplus of $248 million is “positive proof” of his fiscal prowess, Di Giorgio was reading from a well-used city hall play book.

A more ominous prospect awaits. Ford may use the surplus figure as rationale to cut the land transfer tax by at least 10 per cent, starting to deliver on an election promise to totally get rid of the tax. Higher than anticipated property sales netted the city $344 million in 2012 in land transfer revenues, some $56 million more than budgeted.

Ford has been talking up the 10 per cent cut, and city staff and the majority of council have called the idea irresponsible. But Ford wants to go into the 2014 election with the message, “I didn’t quite eliminate the land transfer tax because of the lefties on council, but I got it started. Send me back to city hall with more right-wingers and I’ll finish the job.”

Ford can expect push-back from staff. This year’s surplus is built on one-time occurrences not likely to be repeated — revenue from signs, a TTC windfall and a big bump in property sales, staff will argue. It won’t be long before the surplus settles at just over $100 million.

With a surplus of $248 million, one could imagine the entire land transfer tax being eliminated without an obvious impact on the budget. It would remove staff’s margin of error, a risk in itself, but there are many other budget areas to disguise revenue shortfall. Two or three years would pass before the shortfalls in revenue became apparent.

For example, upon Ford’s election he immediately axed the vehicle registration tax. Some might say the lost $50 million or $60 million wasn’t noticed. Now that the province is considering new taxes to force us to pay for transit and roads, the vehicle tax would come in handy.

In essence, if Ford had control of council, if he could do the simple task of managing his allies and attract even a modicum of support from the reasonable councillors in the political middle, he might accomplish his goal. So far, he’s proven inept and incompetent at this essential task.

Still, the mayor will bellow how great a job he’s done fixing the city’s “fiscal mess.” He’ll make it sound like before Ford, Toronto wallowed in deficits; that surpluses started with him. Not so.

Toronto’s had a surplus every year since amalgamation. In the four years before he turned the city’s finances over to Ford, David Miller, whom Ford paints as a reckless spender, averaged $226 million a year in surpluses.

In fact, Miller left Ford the two largest surpluses in the city’s history: $367 million in 2010 and $354 million in 2009.

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